“With the help of the Tarisio grant, I aim to popularise Bahudari with a video album to promote Carnatic music globally and spread the joy of this art form. Through Bahudari, I will take Carnatic Music and its rich heritage to some of the younger and underprivileged sections of society,” declares Apoorva Krishna, the winner of Tarisio Young Artists Grants programme. This programme supports innovative string-based projects that are created and driven by young artistes. Bahudari is an original instrumental composition by Apoorva on the violin, accompanied by Vinod Shyam on the mridangam and Sunaad Anoor on the ganjira. Since its inception five years ago, Apoorva is the first Indian and Carnatic musician to win this grant.
Tarisio is an auction house for string based instruments with offices in London and New York. It aims to help musicians and encourage entrepreneurship and creativity in the arts. Each year they award a total of $25,000 for five young artists. Applicants were from all nationalities, between the ages of 18 and 30, and who played string instruments (violin, viola and cello).
Final round
There were two rounds and in the first one, three judges, alumni from Ensemble Connect Carnegie Hall, shortlisted 30 out of over 200 applicants from around the world. In the final round, the 30 shortlisted applicants were asked to submit a detailed project description, budget, communications strategy and short video introduction in May 2017.
The Tarisio Trust 2017 judges at the final level were Kim Kashkashian (Grammy Award-winning soloist), Martin Engstroem (founder and executive director of Verbier Festival) and Quatuor Ébène (France’s genre-defying ensemble), who chose four winners (including Apoorva) each of whom would be the recipient of the $5,000 grant. The audience was asked to vote for the fifth winner from the judges’ final list.
In the coming months, the Bahudari ensemble will compose and produce an original audio-visual music album lead by Apoorva, besides acquiring a partnership with NGO’s and Government bodies that promote Art and Culture in India, by conducting outreach programmes to spread Carnatic music, especially among the underprivileged and specially abled persons.
Apoorva learnt to play the violin from the age of 7 under Anuradha Sridhar in America and under Srimati Brahmanandam after her family relocated to Bengaluru when she was 12.
She provided violin accompaniment to senior artistes like Aruna Sairam and Bombay Jayashri, Chitraveena Ravikiran, Mandolin Rajesh, Saketharaman as well as many young musicians.
She was adjudged the Best Violinist in 2011 in the Spirit of Youth Music Festival at the Music Academy. She was the winner of Sheik Chinnamoulana Yuva Puraskar in Naad Bhed All India Competition conducted by SPIC MACAY and Doordarshan in 2013, Kalavanta 2014 for Best Main Performer, Sangeetha Mudra Award in 2015, and First prize in the All India Radio competitions. She is also a B High graded artiste with AIR Bengaluru. Apoorva leads a Youth Indian Classical Music Group in Bengaluru. She has directed the ensemble for Indian Raga Bangalore Labs, composing a Ranjani Tillana that received 1,000,000 views.
